


holy goddess with the beautiful hair

by betony



Category: Greek and Roman Mythology
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:09:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1567388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betony/pseuds/betony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Demeter, and the Titanomachy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	holy goddess with the beautiful hair

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChokolatteJedi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChokolatteJedi/gifts).



The first things Demeter learns of life outside her father’s belly are these: Sunlight burns. The wind is startling cold across her body. The world feels blessedly open when Hades’s elbow isn’t digging into her stomach, no matter how many times she snaps at him to stop. 

The young man standing before her, Hera and Poseidon doubled over and coughing behind him, extends his hand to her to help her to her feet. “Well met, sister,” he says, and beams, as though he had never wanted anything more than to smile at her like that, as though he hadn’t two other sisters to greet. Demeter warms to him far more quickly than she should. 

“My name is Zeus,” he adds; “and I have yearned to meet you for years. There was an herb I knew and so I freed you by having our father—oh, there he goes again,” and so, warned, Demeter whirls around just in time to catch the sleeping Cronus gag and cough up a pale, weedy creature. 

“Hades,” Demeter says with no great love, remembering years of elbows prodding into her liver. 

“Demeter,” replies her brother, equally dourly; no doubt he has imagined some ridiculous grievance against her himself. 

“Can you stand?” Zeus murmurs gently and, even if she couldn’t, Demeter wouldn’t be shamed before Hades for anything. She nods, keeping herself upright by sheer force of will, and Zeus goes to offer his hand to Hades. 

Hades doesn’t take it. Instead he insists on staggering to his feet alone, the fool (naturally, Demeter ignores her own stubborn pride just instants earlier), squints suspiciously at Zeus and—whatever ill-natured thing he was about to say is mercifully interrupted by Hestia’s emergence from Cronus’s gullet. 

Where her siblings were awkward, Hestia is graceful as ever. Before, she was the only one who could keep comfortable and out of everyone’s way, whose authority kept them from too many arguments. Demeter supposes it comes of being the eldest, of having the most experience surviving in their father’s belly of all of them. Now, her hawkish nose raised high, Hestia surveys all five of them and sad picture they present; lastly, her gaze lingers on Zeus. 

“I expect,” she says at last, “that you have some way of protecting us all from our father’s wrath once he discovers what you have done?” and Zeus, startled out of his charm, can only nod. 

“Good,” Hestia says, and favors them with a wolfish smile Demeter has only now seen in bright light, “I won’t be satisfied until we take back what is ours. Lead the way, younger brother—for now.” 

Zeus obeys. Hestia, catching Demeter’s eye, winks. 

* * *

What Demeter remembers of her father is this: 

In the instants between leaving her mother's body and entering her father's, Cronus picked her up to peer curiously at her. "Yellow hair," he said to Rhea, lifting the downy tufts on her head to examine more closely. "The other two had black. Yellow hair, like wheat. Like my harvest." 

"Yes," said Rhea, and even then, Demeter had recognized the desperation in her voice, "yes, this one is different, this one is special, Cronus, please, spare her, the prophecy said a son--" 

Cronus clucked his tongue. "Rhea," he said, and there was real contrition in his voice, "you know I can't do that," and then he was lifting her up and up and forward, and there was black and warmth again, and hands reaching for her own. 

"Sister?" new voices said. "Sister? Hestia, Hestia, look, we have a new sister!" and "Well met, sister. We'll call you Demeter, if you've no objections," and the voices were kind and friendly, but Demeter ached to be out in the light, out where her father could see her wheat-colored hair and admire it once again. 

Such fancies only lasted the first few thousand days of her imprisonment, until Poseidon and Hera and, oddly enough, a strange smooth stone, came tumbling down to join them. 

Like it or not, Demeter knows her father. She has fallen asleep to the thud of his heart, beating steadily above them. She has heard enough to know he does not love them. 

She only wishes that he did. 

* * *

The war is awful. Demeter, who always what sort of person she would turn out to be once, is surprised to find herself quite resourceful. She is a fair shot with a bow, and serviceable with a sword, and a spear gives her the range she finds most comfortable. But she lacks Hestia's bone-deep relish for victory, or Hera's satisfaction with each new guile that leads to a new fallen Titan. Demeter wakes up in the morning, gathers whatever weapons haven't already been claimed by her siblings, to prepare herself dutifully for war. 

Today Zeus and Hera are squabbling over who has the first right to use the thunderbolt prototype their uncles the Cyclopes have provided. 

" _I_ bade them create it," says Zeus. 

"And it was the light in _my_ eyes that gave them the idea for it," says Hera haughtily, tossing her shining hair. "You heard them say so as well as I." 

"Let neither of you have it if you go on so," grumbles Poseidon, never patient; "or if you must bicker, at least argue your way into finding us some breakfast." 

Demeter bites back a sigh. She's had sweet cakes and fresh melons laid on the table for hours, but far be it from Poseidon to deign to acknowledge it once he's found something to complain about. 

It's Hades, though, who's settled down at the end of a table with a melon neatly split before him, Hades who takes a bite and inclines his head to Demeter in silent gratitude. It's civility to a degree she wouldn't have expected of her brother, and all the more startling is the realization that she doesn't know what she'll do if she doesn't have a reason to despise him. 

Demeter looks away and pretends she hadn't noticed. 

* * *

Better than anyone; better than Poseidon with his crinkling eyes and his jokes, or Zeus with his charm and smiles and the glamour of the unknown, and certainly more than Hades, Demeter loves her sisters. It has always been so with her, to enjoy the society of women, to find their minds and duties clearer to her understanding 

Hera laughs at that. "Precious little you'd know of that," she points out. "You've hardly known any souls at all that weren't in a belly or on a battlefield." 

Hestia she loves for being the first warm arms to go around her, to give her a name, to sing her to sleep; Hera she loves because Demeter comforted her, and chastised her, and sang to her in turn. They are all three linked by something as bright and strong as the ichor in their bloods, and Demeter knows without a doubt that she would lie or die or destroy for their sakes without a second thought. 

She supposes that means she ought to love her mother, too, but she doesn't; Rhea is, unfairly, the one among the Titans who she most resents. Cronus at least had held her, had told her hair was like wheat. Rhea, Rhea had only begged, and unsuccessfully at that. Then she had given up. Any mother --any real mother--would struggle and scream and fight until her child was back at her side, crack the world open and create it again until it had down what she wanted. 

Demeter swears (by sky, by Styx, by her sisters) that she'll never do to any child of hers what Rhea has done to hers. 

The trees above her laugh and whisper as she speaks the words; and she knows they expect her to fail to keep her word. She won't. 

* * *

With weary eyes, ten years later, they watch Mount Otyrys fall. 

But it stands unhappy testament to how deeply they depend on Zeus, the brash unknown brother they’ve only just met, that it’s not until he relaxes lowers his last thunderbolt, that they allow themselves to believe it. 

”We’ve won,” he says, and Demeter lets her bow fall to the group, knees sagging with relief. 

Out of the corner of her vision, she can see Hestia throw back her head with fierce satisfaction, Hera tumbling happily into her arms. Poseidon shouts with joy, and Zeus laughs at him, his face so free and open he really does seem the youngest of them all. Hades…Hades she supposes must be equally overjoyed, though naturally he’d never suffer himself to show it; brother he might be, but she has never been able to understand him. 

“We’ve won,” Demeter repeats to herself, reverently. They might have fought for freedom from their father’s bowels, and revenge, but now all the world is in their grasp. They could do anything they please, she and her siblings, and no one will dare disappoint them again. 

Her heart skips a beat with all the possibilities. 

* * *

Of course it’s not so easy as that. 

Time passes. Hestia's blood raged burned bright; and what was left behind Demeter isn't sure she recognized. This new Hestia has purple bags under her eyes and sits silent, bone-weary at the best of times. She spends much of her time at the hearth, staring unseeing into the flames. 

Demeter comes to her, cajoles her away, makes sure she drinks deep from a cup of ambrosia before she grows too weak. “Why do you do it, dearest?” she murmurs, sitting Hestia down at a table, making sure she fills her belly. 

“Because,” Hestia, “because it helps me forget.” 

Hera, on the other hand, seems never to want to forget. Whenever Demeter goes to spin beside her, Hera’s fingers are always in motion, as she recounts their victories, her spindle brandished as though it were a spear. Every glowing detail is recited nearly a thousand times, and Hera’s eyes shine bright. 

”I miss it,” she confesses once. “Every day I miss it, every day I wish I could go back, to feel myself again.” 

Demeter sometimes wonders if she’s the only one to have realized the war ended, even if it was only when Zeus told them so. 

* * *

Her brothers divide rulership of the world between themselves, throwing dice, of all things, for dominion. They do not consult their sisters; in fact, the first Demeter learns of it is when Hera strides in, white-faced, snarling: “They didn’t even _think_ to ask us!” 

“Ask us about what, dear one?” says Demeter, idly plaiting Hestia’s hair, so thick and dark and lovely now that it is no longer stained with blood. 

“Our brothers,” Hera drawls, “in their infinite wisdom, have decided it is their prerogative to draw lots for the sky, sea, and the souls of all living men, leaving us with precious little else to claim.” 

Demeter wants to believe it was all Hades's idea, but it clearly wasn't; even she can recognize the ambition that fuels Zeus to greatness, and Poseidon's hunger to outdo his younger sibling. If anything, Hades would have agreed to participate only to keep himself from being robbed of everything, as his sisters would be. Before she knows it, Demeter finds herself on her feet, halfway across the room to Hera, to meet her so they can storm inside the room where her siblings perpetuate this outrage and force them to desist. But: 

“Let them,” Hestia says, and Demeter turns to gawk at her: is this Hestia, eldest and strongest of her siblings, quickest to rage at injustice? But no, Hestia only shakes her head, and says: “Let them. What difference does it make?” 

“All the difference—“ Hera splutters “We fought alongside them, we won the battle, too—we have as much right to their power as they do! How dare they take it, how dare they presume—“ 

“I said,” Hestia murmurs, “let them be, Hera. Or do _you_ presume to defy me?” 

Hera opens her mouth and closes it, and clearly there is more she means to say. But she will not cross her sister’s authority, any more than Demeter will. Hera holds her tongue and turns on her heel. 

Demeter longs to follow Hera, but looking at Hestia, sagging once more into her chair, the same dark desperation rising in her eyes, Demeter knows she can't leave her. 

She does anyway. 

* * *

The lots were rigged. 

Or at least they must have been. Otherwise, why would Hades be banished to the underworld, Poseidon consoled with the sea, and Zeus free to command the skies and all of the rest of his siblings? 

Demeter, despite her resentment, is the only one who waits to bid Hades goodbye as he descends to his new realm. His lips twitch with something is either impatience or amusement when he catches sight of her. 

"You needn't look so sorry," he says. "I've heard they're very excited to have me. They're even considering renaming the place after me." 

"Nothing lives in the underworld," Demeter snaps back, "no sunlight, no happiness; and not to mention how close you are to Father's prison--" 

Hades lets out his hacking laugh. "Precisely why they need me to guard it and no one else." He pauses. "I will miss you, though, and the others. It will be ...different without you, after all this time." He shakes his head. "I never dreamt I would say those words." 

"You'll be lonely," and Demeter's chest swells, for the first time, with anger for him rather than at him. "Zeus was unfair, unkind--" 

"Some quiet will do me good," Hades corrects, and before she quite realizes it, he is gone. 

She never even had the chance to tell him she would miss him, too. 

* * *

It's anger, not affection, that sends her back to her mother. These days Rhea occupies an difficult position, half deposed Queen and half the honored mother of the masters of Olympus. No one knows how to treat her; no one, not even Zeus, knows what to say to her. For everyone's sake, Zeus decrees it best for her to keep to her own rooms. 

"You must be happy," Demeter says. 

"I am happy," Rhea replies mildly, "I am happy that my children are alive and well." 

"I know who must have given Zeus the idea to challenge his brothers to lots. I know who already has chosen him over the rest of us." Her voice is desperate now, accusing. 

Rhea's smile turns pitying. 

"You are unhappy that I did not show you the way," she says, "that I did not have to scheme and prod you into a throne as i did your brother. But you, my Demeter, you have so much to claim in your own right. You have no need to envy your brothers." 

She steps closer, pauses to examine a lock of Demeter's yellow hair. Demeter finds she can't seem to breathe. " _Hair like wheat,_ your father said," she says gently. "If he'd meant anyone to have his harvest, it would be you." 

Rhea steps away, still smiling, and Demeter thinks: _it's all a trap, pretty words to keep her Zeus safe,_ but nonetheless, the seed takes root. 

* * *

Hestia tells her she has chosen to mind the hearth and the home above all else, to let her body rest, to find peace instead of rage. Demeter lets her go. 

Hera tells her, later, that she has decided to accept Zeus’ proposal of marriage. It seems less a matter of romance than a chance for Hera to get the never-ending war she seeks, albeit a delicate, domestic one, and Demeter thinks that if Hera will come closest to happiness down this path. She lets her go. 

Rhea tires one day of opulent imprisonment in the palace of Olympus and slips away unnoticed one day; Zeus is furious, of course, and the others bemused, but Demeter waits and is the only one not surprised when they hear of a new goddess, Cybele, who roams the hills of Anatolia, lions snarling in her wake. 

Demeter tells no one of what she has chosen, patiently bringing the harvest year after year until the mortals realize. They are grateful, of course, enough to raise songs and festivals in her honor, to send her sacrifices and increase her power. _Holy goddess with the beautiful hair,_ they sing, and Demeter thinks of her wheat-gold hair, and smiles to think of her father --and mother's--legacy.

**Author's Note:**

> title after the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.


End file.
